I just got from “hell on earth”, also known as Wal-mart. My Mom and I went to pick up a few ingredients for a lasagna that she is making tomorrow and it was awful. The lines were super long, the shelves were practically empty, and the U-scans kept breaking. Gah!!! Next time we will definitely go to Harris Teeter or Kroger instead.

Okay, enough ranting.

Sorry about not posting last night….or this afternoon. We got to the beach house somewhat late after some outrageous traffic in Charlotte and then detouring around a bad collision in Mint Hill. I swear, I think everyone in Charlotte decided to head out of town yesterday evening. It was nuts!

After publishing yesterday’s lunch post I ended up eating my sandwich right away. I guess I was hungrier than I thought.  And before heading back to work I mixed up a little dessert for the road. This lovely mixture included Chobani Champions chocolate Greek yogurt with toffee chips, butterscotch chips, and mini semi sweet chocolate chips. Tasty combo, but it was not easy to eat and drive.

I spent the afternoon working, but I was itching to get out the door all afternoon. After all vital tasks were handled I was able to slip out about 30 minutes early, and good thing! It took me twice as long than usual to get home because of all the traffic. Argh! Things definitely did not get off on the right foot.

After battling traffic to get out of Charlotte we started moving quite nicely, and I got hit by my usual traffic snack attack. There are few decent eating options on the way (because we take back roads) and I always seem to get hungry when nothing is around. Fortunately I came prepared.

I ended up snacking on some almonds and an apple. I was still hungry but at least they held me over until we could stop.

The only non-fast food option we passed was Subway, so guess what we had for a 2nd meal. I ordered the exact same thing as I had for lunch, except I added some pepperoni in order to mix things up a bit. It didn’t work. With all of the delicious toppings (jalapenos specifically) I couldn’t even taste the pepperoni, but boy was I happy to have some food in mah belly!

The chips were not that great (too sweet for my taste) but I ate them anyways because I was hungry and I didn’t feel like eating a cutie instead.

I was happy to get to the beach and chill for a bit, but it was already bed time. So after a little visiting we all hit the sack.

This morning was nice and relaxed. We all slept until our bodies told us to get up (that and the sun shining through the window into my eyes and the dogs roaming around). I ended up getting about of bed around 8:30 AM to a gorgeous day.

We all lazed around a bit this morning. Once we finally got motivated to moved I chowed down on a Glo bar. I really wasn’t all too hungry, but we were getting ready to take the dogs for a walk on the beach and I didn’t want to get hungry then.

The dogs love the beach but they get pretty overenthusiastic and they can be hard to control at times. These little dogs are strong!

Next on the agenda was shopping! We planned on just hitting up the grocery store for the lasagna items but ended up hitting the outlets instead. We figured we could go to the grocery store after dark rather than wasting our precious daylight hours. We totally scored at Old Navy because they were having a sale where everything was 40% off! Score!

I also managed to pick up some rockin’ Converse sneakers. I think that is all the shopping I will do on this trip because I have my eye on a few pieces at the Land’s End Canvas online store and they are kind of pricey.

After shopping we were hungry and decided to hit up a new place.

I had a hankerin’ for BBQ that I just had to satisfy.

It was a cute place, and the food was excellent. I got the lunch special, which included a small pulled pork sandwich, slaw (which I don’t eat), onion rings (I subbed baked beans), and a drink. All of that for $4.95!

The food did not disappoint! The portions were generous and the food had great flavor. My only complaints are that the beans were a little thick and that they did not have Texas Pete hot sauce on the table. I gotta have Texas Pete on my BBQ. I am definitely looking forward to going back to satisfy future BBQ cravings.

After lunch my Mom and I swung by the house to put on our bathing suites and grab our beach gear so we could spend the afternoon chillin’ on the beach. Love it. We slathered on (sprayed on, actually) our 30 spf and walked the several blocks to the nearest beach access, set up our chairs, and talked for a good 3 hours or so. The temperature was nice and comfortable. We decided to head back to the house once we were both out of water and feeling thirsty.

We had good timing too! Minutes after we let ourselves into the house the guys got home from their afternoon golf game. After we all got showers and were smelling good and looking nice we headed out for dinner.

We head to Calabash, NC for our seafood . Coleman’s has been a family favorite for years.

We started with out usual basket of hushpuppies. The serve them with cinnamon honey butter, regular honey butter, and tartar sauce. Tartar sauce is my fave hushpuppie condiment.

I think I ate 3/4 of the basket myself!

Since we know that I always overeat on the hushpuppies B and I decided to split an entree. We got a small fried calabash shrimp plate that came with slaw and a baked potato plus a side salad.

Excellent, as usual!

We gave our food a little time to settle and then decided it was time for dessert. I had a huge milkshake craving yesterday that went unfulfilled so I knew just what I wanted.

We took the dogs for a walk to a local ice cream shop. The owners are military so my Dad likes to chat with them whenever they are in town working at the storefront.

My vanilla milkshake really hit the spot.

Boy, that trip to Wal-mart really put a kink in my evening. Time to try to clear out my Google Reader and relax with the fam.

Did you have the day off today? How did you spend your day?

Thank you guys for the nice comments last night! I really needed that bit of encouragement.

After blogging and bathing last night I was starving.

PB&J on a bagel thin with a small glass of milk satisfied my hunger as I headed to bed, which I managed to get into way to late.

Of course I slept in this morning, or as late as I could manage without making myself late for work. I was upset to wake up to Piper puking. Ick!

I let her lay on the bed with me while I was getting ready. I hate seeing my girl feel bad. Breakfast was substantial….or that’s how it felt! Dannon strawberry Greek yogurt with 1/2 nectarine and some granola, plus the other half of a Heaven Glo Bar from yesterday afternoon.

I felt like I was eating yogurt forever. I thought the bowl would never end!

After breakfast, I signed onto a 2 hour long conference call to train a new employee. After 2 hours my throat was killing me. I never talk that much.

I was feeling wiped out and hungry, but lunch was less than an hour away.

So I ate pickles as a nice, light snack. They did the trick! When lunch time I was comfortably hungry [not starving] and ready for some comfort food. Leftover baked spaghetti from Sunday was calling my name.

When the bowl was gone I was left wanting more!

Instead I had some raw broccoli and cauliflower with ranch dressing and some bbq TJ’s popped chips. As you can see I forgot to take a picture until after all of the veggies were gone. Dessert was the long anticipated chocolate flavor Chobani Champions!

I topped with granola and Heath chips.

I really liked it! I actually liked it a lot better than the chocolate Oikos.

I liked that the chocolate was already stirred in not on the bottom, and it seemed to be a little sweeter with a little less tang. The only downside is that it is sold in a pack with honeynana flavor, and I am not a banana person.

I think blogging has helped me get past the late afternoon blahs. Thanks! Now it is time to get some stuff cranked out before 5.

Be sure to check out my guest post on My Fashionable Affair.

Have a great afternoon and I will see you for dinner!

I am happy to say that B is feeling better today. Hopefully a good night’s rest tonight will make him good as new.

I did manage to get myself out of bed again for a workout. I did level 1 of 30 Day Shred. That workout makes me feel like such a wimp. I can never make it through a few of the exercises, but I am seeing improvement each workout.

I felt cute again today so I decided to take some pictures of my outfit again.

All of my pants are either too loose or slightly too tight so most days I feel like I look like such a slob. I usually wear the bigger pants since I sit all day, and after a few hours of sitting slightly too tight pants feel way too tight. It is just nice to feel good about how you look every once in a while.

I was starving by the time I got to work and I was ready to dig into breakfast. Honeynana Chobani Champions yogurt, Adore Glo bar, an apple, and some Justin’s Honey PB were on the menu.

When I went to Harris Teeter on Sunday I found Chobani Champions on sale and I could not pass them up! I want to compare the chocolate flavor to chocolate Oikos, so despite not liking banana flavored foods I grabbed the chocolate and honeynana pack.

I am not usually keen on the idea of something so chocolaty for breakfast so I grabbed the honeynana for this mornings breakfast.

First of all, I love the serving size. This size is perfect for me. I tend to get tired of yogurt before I make it through a normal sized container.

After taking my pictures and trying the yogurt plain, I remembered to add some chia seeds that I had packed this morning. For a banana flavored product I was pretty pleased with the flavor. Even though the flavor was decent I knew I could not eat an entire container of banana flavored yogurt on its own so I decided to use it as fruit dip.

I sliced the apple, topped with a drizzle of PB, and then spooned on the yogurt. Deee-lish-us. And I only used about 1/2 the packet with PB, which means I am getting to spread out the goodness.

For a morning snack I decided to try something that Katie recommended, dried apricots with almonds stuffed inside.

I have tried and tried but I just don’t like dried apricots. I ended up pitching the apricots and put together a different snack.

Almonds with peanuts and Cuties.

I was really at a loss for what to eat for lunch, but I am pretty proud of what I came up with.

I was going to make a turkey sandwich until I realized that we were out of turkey. Plan B turned out to be a  BLT, and then I added some chicken andouille sausage for kicks.

The final product ended up being a toasted bagel thin schmeared with blue cheese (we are out of mayo), 3 pieces of turkey bacon, some chicken andouille sausage, tomato, drizzle of olive oil vinaigrette, and some romaine lettuce. Very good sandwich.

Then I ate the leftover salad from this weekend that my Mom sent home with me. I love blue cheese on salads.

Quick desserts are slim pickings in my house right now so I ended up eating some chocolate and butterscotch chips with some milk. The butterscotch chips are so rich that I could not finish all that is pictured here.

My afternoon snack was the rest of my almonds and some dried cherries. I did not eat them together together though. I ate the almonds first then the cherries. As my apricot experiment may have indicated, I am not keen on the dried fruit nut combo no matter how much I like or don’t like the dried fruit in question.

B wanted soup for dinner so he ran to Food Lion to pick up a few cans. He picked up chicken noodle and sirloin burger because they had the lowest sodium content… and because he wanted chicken noodle.

I ended up eating the sirloin burger with a slice of homemade rosemary bread that I had made a few months ago and froze. When I have a soupy soup (as opposed to a stewy soup) I love to soup up the roux with bread. I think I could have eaten 2 or 3 more pieces of bread.

This soup had absolutely no staying power so I have nibbled all evening.

We opened some Triscuits Thin Crisps to try. They tasted really good, but the rosemary flavor is still my favorite flavor.

Then B made me some guac.

Unfortunately it didn’t hit the spot either and I only ate a few bites before leaving the rest for B.

I ended up finishing the chocolate and butterscotch chips from lunch as dessert, but I am still feeling snacky. I must find something soon because I hate to go to bed hungry, and I am very fortunate not to have to.

I am feeling surprisingly tired so I think I am going head to bed soon. Have a good night.

I am so sleepy. I have got to start going to bed earlier. Last night it just couldn’t be helped though. One of B’s uncles lost his fight against cancer last night and we were starting to plan for B to travel to Florida. Things are just up in the air because B’s cousin is snowed in at NYC and they are not sure when she will be able to get a flight out. Please keep them in your prayers.

While we were up talking about details we both got the late night munchies.

We started out with clementines. We love these guys. So sweet and juicy and easy to peel!

Then we moved onto something new.

I had a coupon for these new Bagel Thins and had to give them a try. I like sandwich thins and I love bagels so I figured they had to be good.

Stats.

B and I split one. I had mine with some PB and he had his with Laughing Cow. There was a debate about whose was better.

A perfect late night snack.

This guy kept me satisfied well into the morning, if 9AM counts as well into the morning.

As far as the Bagel Thins go I really like them. They have the chewiness of a bagel without all of the bulk. I will definitely buy again.

I was running late for work somehow and had to bring breakfast with me.

Is it weird that I have been keeping a box of Agave Plus Granola in my car? I kind of have to hide it from B if I want any for myself. He really likes this stuff too!

This container of Chobani was almost too much for me to finish. I was stuffed all morning after eating it. You have to love the staying power of all that protein.

Owww!!!! I just smashed my finger between my desk and my chair.

For lunch I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted once I got home. I had an open can of refried beans with my name on it.

Quesadillas! This quesadilla is a La Tortilla Factory tortilla with about 1/4 c refried beans, handful of baby spinach, and shredded cheddar cheese. My delicious topping included Jack’s special salsa (best ever), quickly made homemade guac, and Smart Balance sour cream.

The guac would have been better if B made it, but I just couldn’t wait! And I practically licked my plate clean.

Tonight B and I are going out to celebrate V-Day. He will probably be out of town anyways and we like to celebrate early so we can miss all of the crowds. Right now the plan is to go to a wine tasting at Corkscrew in Birkdale Village and then home to cook dinner.

Be sure to check me out over on Meals & Moves tonight. I should have a guest post going up around 7:30PM.

Today has been another beautiful snowy day.

I started my day with a breakfast of Greek yogurt and granola.

I have a ridiculous amount of breakfast pictures because I was enjoying all of the natural light.  Do you think I can replicate this strawberry yogurt with plain yogurt and strawberry preserves? I think  I am going to try because I have a big tub of plain (Greek) yogurt in my fridge that needs to be used.

After breakfast I took Piper outside to play and take pictures. She definitely took to the snow better today.

This is the only action shot I could get of Piper because she was moving so fast.

Okay, I had one more.

Okay, that’s all the snow stuff I have, I promise.

After playtime Brian and I decided to test the roads in effort to head to Costco. The DOT had done and awesome job of clearing the interstate and some of the main roads.

Lunch was primarily the free samples that we got a Costco, but we did stop by Wendy’s on our way home. We split some spicy chicken nuggets.

And a double stack with cheese.

Once we were home and had everything unloaded and put away it was time for some more snowy playtime.

In snowy weather I roll in pink rain boots. I had to wear 2 pairs of socks though because they are not insulated at all.

After a little TV watching I got a box of goodies ready for my bloggie valentine.

TJ’s Lovey Gummy Tummies; Fresh Market Cupid’s Cranberry Crunch Mix (I really wanted this for myself but this was the last one…I just realized that I forgot to mark out the price. Oops!); Cherry Pie, Apple Pie, and Cashew Cookie Larabars; and a cute cupcake note pas (I love these for making grocery lists or writing down meal ideas).

TJ’s milk chocolate covered mini PB crackers and TJ’s fair trade swiss dark chocolate.

I hope she likes it.

A little later I snacked on a slice of provolone while B got dinner ready.

And for dinner. Baked shoestring french fries that stuck to the fool (oops) and a special bagel concoction of B’s. The bagel was a CostCo parmesan cheese bagel with chive and onion cream cheese, sliced ham, tomato, and provolone cheese. This was very tasty and filling.

No dessert yet, but I just pulled some Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Oatmeal cookies out of the oven. Hopefully the highest bidder (from the Bake 4 Haiti bake sale) will email me tonight or early tomorrow so I can get these into the mail, otherwise my coworkers will get these and I will be making another batch later this week.

Another weekend has gone by too fast and  have a few chores to finish up before bed. Night!

I am so excited right now that I am practically jumping up and down! I just sent out a “feeler” email to see if any of my coworkers would be interested in participating in Ronald McDonald House’s Sport a Shirt, Share a Night and I have gotten some incredibly positive feedback. The day to sport the shirt isn’t until the end of April and there are people already ready to order one! I am so thankful to work with a group who is will to support this wonderful cause. Yippee!

Last night after blogging and bathing I had a bedtime snack.

Dark chocolate covered almonds and a Ghirardelli dark chocolate and caramel square with some skim milk. Mmmm.

I had every intention of getting up early to workout this morning, but my alarm didn’t go off until 6:45 AM. I forgot to reset it from yesterday. Oopsy! I went ahead and did 25 sit-ups and 10 reps of a alternating toe touch kind of exercise. Its not the same but its something. I will try to make up for it by taking Piper on a walk after work.

Breakfast was thrown together in a hurry. Lucky for me I have my banana oatmeal pancakes that I made on Sunday night.

I made pancake AB, banana, and jelly sandwiches.

They really needed more almond butter. I consumed the leftover banana while cutting up my sandwich.

Plus I ate something that Ben and Sophie introduced me to about a year ago.

Yogurt (in this case 1/2 container of blueberry Chobani) and unsweetened applesauce. Looks yucky, tastes yummy. I would have liked to have added a diced apple or pear but I ran out of time!

I was hoping to grab sushi for lunch with a friend but that’s a no go this week because she has a physical therapy appointment. Now I need to rethink my lunch plans. Its not too far off now.

Good Morning! Boy and I sore. I was sore this morning before my workout but now it is even worse. But it hurts so good.

Last night I did have a bedtime snack.

Ghirardelli dark chocolate squares with caramel filling and some milk.

I got up on time this morning, thanks to a grumbling dog. I wanted to set up the internet to work on the Wii so I could do a yoga workout online, but that was a no go. I will have to try to address that again tonight.

I did a modified version of Emily’s workout (the same workout that inspired yesterdays workout).

Do you like my stick figures? I knew I wouldn’t remember all of the moves so I tried to do some drawing to jog my memory.

My chest was so sore when I got to the diamond pushups that I could barely do them. Also, I modified the pushups and plank so that I was on my knees. I have to work my way up to the real stuff.

I loved this workout just as much as yesterdays. With all of the changing up I barely noticed the time going by. I think this combined with some yoga may be just right for me.

Breakfast was an almost repeat of yesterday.

1/2 diced Fuji apple, 1/3 diced banana, 1/2 container Chobani peach Greek yogurt, and a Kashi trail mix bar crumbled on top.

Something was way off about this breakfast. I am not sure if it was the yogurt or the granola bar or the fact that I mixed it up before I left the house and ate it one I got to work but something was off. I ended up picking around the granola and forced myself to eat the rest.

After my workout I was still pretty hungry so I also scarfed down a piece of toast and PB that a brought with me.

This really hit the spot.

My morning has been busy and has totally flown by, but I did manage to eat a snack before my 11 AM meeting.

This was a super tasty snack, but I didn’t have enough hummus to finish my crackers. Oh well, lunch will be soon enough.